It's Beanie Crazy Year, Furby Yon The Bizarre

JOHN GROGAN

As another wacky year rides into the sunset, we convene again to announce our annual "It Must Be In The Water Awards."

The awards recognize the quirky, the crazy, the downright dumb behavior that makes South Florida so famously bizarre, a place where truth usually ends up being stranger than fiction.

And so here they are, some of the year's more memorably moronic moments:

One beanie-brained police officer: Boynton Beach Police Officer Shannon Mazzeo was reprimanded after her superiors found she attempted to pressure a local merchant to give her a price break on Beanie Babies. The officer, who collects the toys, visited the shop at least five times while on duty and tried to pay just $6 for a $65 collectible "Glory Bear," investigators said. In exchange, Mazzeo allegedly told the merchant she would get better police protection, Sgt. Frank Briganti wrote.

One-stop criminal justice: A woman anxious to visit her inmate husband hijacked an ambulance from JFK Medical Center in Atlantis and drove it straight to the Palm Beach County Jail, where she was promptly arrested and booked.

Well, it had a certain ring to it: Fugitive Sam Castle stayed on the lam for 21 years after his conviction for a Lantana boat explosion that killed his girlfriend. When police caught up with him in Seattle earlier this year, he was living under the name of Mark Bradfield -- the Palm Beach County prosecutor who convicted Castle of arson in 1972.

The tooth fairy he ain't: A Plantation dentist was sentenced to 60 days in jail and lost his license after pleading guilty to roughing up a 5-year-old patient and pulling out tufts of the boy's hair during a routine checkup. And dentists wonder why kids hate them?

Gullible victims aplenty

The old `Let me fit you for a free bra' line: Hialeah police searched for a man who molested three women after telling them he was a bra and girdle salesman and offering to fit them for a free item. All three women took off their clothes when the man asked them to undress for the fitting. I know it's not nice to pick on crime victims, but do they get any dumber than this?

Frank, you insufferable, weenie snob: In image-conscious Boca Raton, the Planning & Zoning Board approved a parking garage for the Boca Raton Resort & Club only after requiring dense landscaping around a ground-level lot where maintenance workers park. Zoning board member Frank Gulisano sniffed: " ... The caliber of people working for the engineering department are not going to be driving cars that you or I or anyone living nearby would find very aesthetically pleasing."

Don't give up that day job, guys: In June, two gunmen held up a worker at Bud's Chicken & Seafood in Delray Beach, demanding money. The worker, who was holding a bag full of cash and receipts, raised his hands -- and the money -- above his head. The robbers checked his pockets and, not noticing the bag in his hand, fled empty-handed.

The right to bear arms, continued: An 86-year-old woman was detained after she carried a fully loaded semiautomatic pistol into the Palm Beach County Courthouse in West Palm Beach. The woman's daughter told deputies her mother was very confused and growing more disoriented with age. Boy, that's reassuring.

And speaking of well-armed idiots: In West Palm Beach, one teen-ager shot another during an argument over a squirt gun.

Oh Furby, Furby, where art thou? A man was arrested and a deputy left with a broken finger after violence erupted in a line outside a Walgreens store west of Boca Raton. The crowd began queuing up at 3 a.m. to buy the latest fad toy, Furby. Get a life, people.

And Happy New Year!

John Grogan's column appears every Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Write him at 3333 S. Congress Ave., Delray Beach 33445, or by e-mail: jgrogn@aol.com.